DiffServ-aware Traffic Engineering (DSTE) is considered to accommodate traffic engineering requirements of the conceived future. DSTE allows different bandwidth constraints for different class types as well as different bandwidth constraint models for control of the class types. The present invention describes a technique to select the LSP, which improves the path selection algorithm toward fulfilling the network operators' optimization criteria. The criteria could be to accommodate more LSPs or to try to balance the utilization of equal cost paths in DS-TE environments.
Although DSTE provides effective bandwidth allocation mechanisms, Constrained Shortest Path First (CSPF) algorithms do not yet take the advantages of DSTE. The present invention takes into account the information advertised by DSCP in order to make better use of the network resources.